Organization

Singer

Tenor

Pene Pati

Faust

Bass

Nicolas Courjal

Mephistopheles

Soprano

Aude Extrémo

Marguerite

Frédéric Caton

Brander

Stage director

Jean-Louis Grinda

Conductor

Kazuki Yamada

Lighting designer

Laurent Castaingt

Costume designer

Jorge Jara

Set designer

Rudy Sabounghi

Video designer

Gabriel Grinda

Choreographer

Eugénie Andrin

Chorus master

Stefano Visconti

Opéra de Monte-Carlo

Others

Chœur d'enfants de l'Académie de musique Rainier III

Choeur de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo

Orchestra

Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo

French

La Damnation de Faust -  (The Damnation of Faust)

Monaco

Grimaldi Forum

Hector Berlioz was so taken with Goethe's Faust that it became the subject of his Op. 1, Huit scènes de Faust, in 1829 when he was still in his mid-twenties. Sixteen years later, he transformed this early work into a légende dramatique containing elements of both opera and cantata—a categorical ambiguity that may have contributed to the work's initial failure at the box office. Expansive in its scope and perspective, it was considered almost impossible to stage fully, even by the composer himself—until 1893, when Raoul Gunsbourg realized the first of many successful stagings to come at the very venue to which it returns for a 2022 blockbuster: the Monte Carlo Opera!

Berlioz's captivating retelling of the Faustian legend has never looked or sounded better than in this new production by Jean-Louis Grinda. A fitting grand finale for Grinda, who will pass the reins to Cecilia Bartoli as the next Monte Carlo Opera Director, La Damnation de Faust is a magnificent spectacle with 300 costumes and 80 singers, including one of the biggest new stars of the lyric stage, Samoan tenor Pene Pati, in the title role; mezzo Aude Extrémo as Marguerite; and acclaimed bass Nicolas Courjal as the devil in the flesh, Mephistopheles himself.

Production booklet

Further reading